Opening Classical Theology

There is a theological model called the classical view.  Proponents of it claim the power and glory of God and God's wonderful plan for all things.

They also insist that God preordains all things, in the strong sense that the cosmic timeline is closed and decided long before we ever came along.  In classical theism every joy and sorrow is set by God from the beginning.  Every good and evil that happens is going to happen no matter what we say or do because it is part of God's plan.

As a result of this classical theism has a problem.  Namely, God's implication in evil.  How could God plan for the horrors of the past, or those of today?  There is also the problem with human dignity.  If God has planned everything, our sense of freedom and personal achievement loses all meaning.

Can we believe in the power and glory of God if God has planned everything?  Can classical theism be saved?

Thankfully there is a counter-current to classical theism which is commonly referred to as the "open" view.  It does not propose a closed system but rather an open-ended creation that God enters into with us.  God wants us to be free so that we can work together in a loving relationship toward what God has all along planned.  Even if granting us freedom runs the risk that we do something else, and take the world in a whole other direction.  In the name of human freedom and the possibility of true partnership God is willing to take the risk, and to abide all of the terrible things that we have done.  To forgive us even.

With this move open theism addresses both of the problems with the classical view.  When God no longer predetermines everything God is no longer complicit in evil.  Evil arises from the free choices of human beings instead.  A space is also opened for human dignity through what we accomplish with our decisions.  There is pride to be had as a human being through our contribution to the achievement of God's wonderful plan.

The only cost is a God who predetermines everything.  What is saved is a God who can do all things in power and glory.

Thanks be to Job.

The Serpent's Truth and God's Lie

We need to be careful with the serpent.  We need to remove any preconception that the serpent is evil. 

The serpent is not evil.  In fact it is the wisest of wild creatures in the beginning.

What we have to understand is that the serpent is not out to get Eve but to help her.  The serpent doesn't lie to Eve but tells her the truth.  It tells her a good thing, that eating from the tree of knowledge doesn't lead to death but to life.  That the fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil should be eaten.

There's nothing false about what the serpent says.  If it is trying to tempt Eve it is because it tells her about a good thing, something that she is appropriately tempted by.  Something that the serpent wants to share because it is good.  If the serpent is blameworthy it is because it is not wise enough.  It doesn't understand why God would lie, and keep Adam and Eve from the knowledge of good and evil...

So why would God lie?  Why would God tell Adam that in eating from the tree he would die?

Like the serpent God knows that knowing good and evil can produce life-giving fruit.  But God also knows that it can be hard to swallow.  A certain maturity is required before we should have such knowledge.  Having knowledge of good and evil is an important stage in moral development...

It is important that as children we don't realize our nudity.  We might be ashamed if we did...

Thanks be to Job.

The Decimation of Israel

God doesn't always come across so good in the Bible.  One place where God's actions are especially questionable is Exodus 32.  Or the story of the golden calf.  For those of you who are unaware it goes something like this: Moses leads the people out of Egypt.  Moses then goes up into the mountains.  The people grow tired of waiting down below.  The people commission a golden calf for their worshipping needs.

When Moses eventually comes down, 3000 Israelites die because of the betrayal.  Moses' command after gathering those loyal to him gives us a good idea why:

"This is what the Lord our God says: 'Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.'"

In other words, it is the word of the Lord that Israel be decimated.  Hence why God doesn't always come across so good.  Ordering things like genocide.  And of His chosen people no less!

But as always with the Bible we must be careful.  When we see something so contrary we need to look closer.  To see what's really going on we have to wind our way back up the mountain, to when God first discovered Israel's betrayal.  If we do so we indeed see that God is in a genocidal mood because of it, for God says to Moses:

"Leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation."

In other words, God wants to start fresh with Moses and to scrap the rest.  God wants to do precisely what Moses eventually commands those loyal to him to do.  Decimate Israel.

The problem is, this initial decision of God's is unacceptable to Moses.  Moses calls God to remember Egypt.  Moses asks God whether Israel was saved only to be destroyed.  Moses begs God to remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the (potential) glory of the people.  And as we see Moses succeeds:

"...for the Lord relented and did not bring on the people the disaster that had been threatened."

So what gives?  Why is Israel decimated in God's name? 

What is clear is that it is only after Moses descends from the mountain that the command is given.  It is only after Moses sees for himself the idolatry of the people that his own anger is incited against them and he gives the order to kill (in God's name).

To understand what is going on we have to see Moses as God's representative to the people.  Moses speaks in God's name.  He is to do exactly what God would do.  And as we see this is precisely what he does: He becomes angry and wants to smite the people upon seeing their idolatry.

The problem is that Moses didn't have someone like himself to soothe his anger.

Aaron, Moses' sidekick, who was to be to Moses as Moses was to God, failed to change Moses' mind as Moses changed God's.  Aaron failed to be the wisdom that we are all called to be and as a result Israel was decimated.

Thanks be to Job.

From Eschaton to Apocalypse

I recently read The Road by Cormac McCarthy.  You may know it better from the film released awhile back starring Viggo Mortensen.  I won't give away any spoilers here but I will say what I took from the story.

To set the stage, the book provides an account of a father and son travelling through, and struggling to survive in, a post-apocalyptic world.  But "post-apocalyptic" is probably the wrong word to use.  A better description would be a world between eschaton and apocalypse, where the eschaton is the end time and the apocalypse is the new beginning.  The Road shows us the journey in between, from eschaton to apocalypse.  It shows us a father and son making their way through a world choking on the ashes of the old and with only a childish hope for the new.

That hope still exists in this "between" world is evident in the fact that the pair are travelling south.  They are trying to make their way to the sea and to the possibility for life that the sea represents.  More palpably it is evident in the son.  Not in the sense that the son has hope but in the sense that the son is the hope (of the father).  The son is the seed of the new world.  The son is the goodness from the old that must be carried forward into the new, and that needs to be preserved in the process.  No matter what the cost.  By whatever means.

With this setting The Road offers us something like a theodicy.  I say "something like" because a theodicy typically provides a defense of the justice of God. The goal is to get God off of the hook for evil, or to show that God is just despite evil.  The Road offers us something like a theodicy because instead of defending God's justice it gives us a reason for God's injustice.  It doesn't give us an explanation for all evil but it does give an explanation for certain immoral actions that all of us could understand.

The point I take from The Road then, to finally get to my point, is not so much that we are to survive by any means possible once the end time comes, as if we are to be like the cannibals that the father and son try to avoid, but rather that we are to protect and preserve the hope that is the son by any means possible.  The goodness of the son must survive to bring about the post-apocalyptic world that we all dream of.  No matter what the cost.  By whatever means.

Thanks be to Job.